Five Startups to Watch From Singularity University’s 2015 Global Solutions Program

For 10 weeks each summer, a group of impact-driven individuals from around the world come to Singularity University’s Silicon Valley campus to embark on our flagship Global Solutions Program (GSP).

Seven weeks into the program, the participants take on SU’s 10^9 challenge with the goal of building a company that will positively impact a billion people in 10 years by leveraging exponential technology.

For many of these teams, GSP is only the beginning. Here’s a look inside five GSP 2015 team projects turned into startups and some of their post-program achievements.

Applications for the 2016 Global Solutions Program have been extended until March 7th. Click here to begin your application.

Aipoly is an intelligent smartphone assistant for the visually impaired. It uses convolutional neural networks trained on several millions of images to identify items in real time. The AI speaks whatever it sees out loud becoming a sighted assistant for the blind. Sighted users can help the visually impaired by teaching it new objects.

AIME is using big data analytics and machine learning to predict the location and time of infectious disease outbreaks in real time. During tests of their dengue prediction platform in Malaysia and Brazil, AIME predicted where outbreaks would occur with 84-88% accuracy in advance of the outbreak.

After GSP, AIME secured a spot in Singularity University’s Field Innovation Exchange program (FIX) and worked with Brazil-based NGO Viva Rio. During the exchange, AIME predicted dengue outbreaks in Rio de Janeiro with 84% accuracy and were selected as winners of PitchGov Sao Paulo in the health category.

Every day, new academic research is published around the world, but most of this research is only accessible to a small community of academic researchers. Iris AI is building an AI tool they’re calling “a shortcut to science.” They hope their software will make navigating complex research intuitive, fast, and available to the public.

This month the team is launching their first product in beta to coincide with the annual TED conference. This first version of Iris AI can scan over 2,000 TED talks and create a visual display of all research related to the talks. The display includes a subject overview plus details and links to the in-depth studies used in the talk.

Alison tells the stories of purpose-driven leaders and is fascinated by various intersections of technology and society. When not keeping a finger on the pulse of all things Singularity University, you'll likely find Alison in the woods sipping coffee and reading philosophy (new book recommendations are welcome).

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